5e Character Guides - why rate all features?

[FrogReaver]

It helps to understand the relative power level of every feature, to gain a greater and more holistic understanding of the entire class. That's an important part of System Mastery.

Both Paladins and Bladesingers get extra attack. Extra attack is far more important to the Paladin than to the blade singer. The feature itself isn’t what is or isn’t strong. It’s the package it’s attached to. Paladins get abilities that work with multiple attacks. Wizards don’t.

Extra attack is very good on a paladin.
It’s merely flavorful on a wizard.

A person with any amount of mastery you quickly comes to realize that in 5e abilities are more intertwined than stand alone and so trying to rate them as if they were stand alone will always fail.

 

[Yunru]

I always prefer the guides that don't rank things based on a good-to-bad scale but on a most-likely-to-be-useful-in-more-situations scale.

In that regard I don't mind the ranking of base class features.

Isn't that just good to bad? Most likely to be useful is good, while most circumstantial is bad?
Okay there's more to good and bad than that, but it's a big factor.

Both Paladins and Bladesingers get extra attack. Extra attack is far more important to the Paladin than to the blade singer. The feature itself isn’t what is or isn’t strong. It’s the package it’s attached to. Paladins get abilities that work with multiple attacks. Wizards don’t.


Extra attack is very good on a paladin.
It’s merely flavorful on a wizard.


A person with any amount of mastery you quickly comes to realize that in 5e abilities are more intertwined than stand alone and so trying to rate them as if they were stand alone will always fail.

Gee sure is a good thing no-one does that then.
It's like you've not even read the subject you're complaining about.
No Wizard guide rates the Bladesinger's Extra Attack the same as a Paladin guide rates it.

Fortunately, I do think they exist, as I have been talking about them, and how they don't appear to serve a useful function. The post you were responding to pointed out that none of the guides that I have seen actually include sufficient information about mandatory features to guide someone in making the decision you said they were useful for. In other words, the information needed to conclude "Oh I can dodge the red bit if I take fighter first" isn't actually contained in the guide. (And, while I didn't mention it, in general the 'features that you get regardless of when you take the class' vs 'features you get only when you take the class at first level' are not, in my experience, called out in guides).

Well there's always the consideration of "I don't want to go into such detail that you no longer need the source book."

 

[Dessert Nomad]

A person with any amount of mastery you quickly comes to realize that in 5e abilities are more intertwined than stand alone and so trying to rate them as if they were stand alone will always fail.

Yeah, I realized that's a thing that bothers me about rating features that I hadn't consciously realized. For example, Martial Weapon Proficiency tends to get a high rating, since, hey, all martial weapons! But all of the classes that make effective weapon attacks get either martial weapon proficiency or proficiency with the weapons that are good for them (Rogues and Bards get the finesse weapons, even though they don't get all martial, for example). There are some exceptional cases where someone might actually seek out martial weapon proficiency who doesn't get it normally, like a rogue archer who wants to use a longbow, but they are unusual. So other than those few special cases, martial weapon proficiency really ranks somewhere from 'meh' to 'trap' - the wizard considering adding a fighter level really shouldn't be treating the ability to do an average of 1 more point of damage on melee attacks that don't use his int to hit as a 'gold quality' (or 'purple quality', or whichever color is high) class feature.

 

[BookBarbarian]

Isn't that just good to bad? Most likely to be useful is good, while most circumstantial is bad?
Okay there's more to good and bad than that, but it's a big factor.

It's a big factor, yes. So much so that you can read a one for the other, and I do, but I think one is more correct so that is the one I prefer. I am of course a pedant.

 

[FrogReaver]

Isn't that just good to bad? Most likely to be useful is good, while most circumstantial is bad?
Okay there's more to good and bad than that, but it's a big factor.


Gee sure is a good thing no-one does that then.
It's like you've not even read the subject you're complaining about.
No Wizard guide rates the Bladesinger's Extra Attack the same as a Paladin guide rates it.

The person I quoted Implied he did.

 

[Seramus]

Both Paladins and Bladesingers get extra attack. Extra attack is far more important to the Paladin than to the blade singer. The feature itself isn’t what is or isn’t strong. It’s the package it’s attached to. Paladins get abilities that work with multiple attacks. Wizards don’t.

Most guides are written from a 'whole package' perspective, where the ratings compare that ability to all other abilities of the class (including roles in the party, etc).

The person I quoted Implied he did.

I think you misunderstood.

 

[FrogReaver]

Most guides are written from a 'whole package' perspective, where the ratings compare that ability to all other abilities of the class (including roles in the party, etc).

I think you misunderstood.

Thanks. Looks like I did misunderstand you. I think what you are saying is true enough even though can find many examples of abilities being rated because other class X can do Y at this level instead of only from the class package perspective.

So one of the first arguments for rating everything had to do with "it helps pick whether to multiclass". If the ratings are only rating abilities compared to your class package then how exactly are they helping you choose when to multiclass?

 

[Yunru]

Because people can intuite?
They can go "Oh this is bad/good for this class next level, but this would be good/bad for multiclassing" etc.

 

[André Soares]

Thanks. Looks like I did misunderstand you. I think what you are saying is true enough even though can find many examples of abilities being rated because other class X can do Y at this level instead of only from the class package perspective.

So one of the first arguments for rating everything had to do with "it helps pick whether to multiclass". If the ratings are only rating abilities compared to your class package then how exactly are they helping you choose when to multiclass?

You keep dealing in absolutes, I'm begining to believe you are a Sith hehe.

Being made in a whole package perspective does not preclude the same rating to help visualizing the pros and cons for multiclassing...

 

[FrogReaver]

Because people can intuite?
They can go "Oh this is bad/good for this class next level, but this would be good/bad for multiclassing" etc.

#1 multiclassing isn't just about the next level and most people aren't very good at intuiting anything but fairly simple scenarios
#2 guides typically don't provide multiclass advice until the multiclass section. That would actually be the logical place to rate the best levels to multiclass. In fact you don't even need to go through all 20, just your top recommendations.
#3 rating an ability in relation to other class abilities provides little insight on it's own into how useful some of those abilities would be in a multiclass situation.

As we have said a wizard generally doesn't value extra attack highly. However, a Wizard / Rogue multiclass will value it much more highly. Yet, the ability was rated fairly low so people that try to intuit when to multiclass based off wizard guide ratings are going to draw the wrong conclusion that skipping extra attack as opposed to rogue levels is the right place to multilclass when it's actually better to take 1 more level for extra attack before starting the rogue levels.